"Tell-a-Bookseller-Friend" Indie Next List Challenge Begins

The American Booksellers Association has announced a new initiative to help booksellers encourage their colleagues to nominate titles for the Indie Next List -- and become eligible to win an ABA gift card in the process.

"Bookselling is all about spreading the word -- talking up terrific, well-chosen books to customers, to friends, to relatives, and to other booksellers," said ABA Chief Marketing Officer Meg Smith, "and the much-anticipated monthly Indie Next List is the go-to source for respected indie bookseller recommendations. We're hoping that this contest will be a fun way to add new bookseller voices to the chorus of those contributing to the Indie Next List."

The "Tell-a-Bookseller-Friend" Indie Next List Nomination Challenge [1] begins on Thursday, September 25, and extends until Friday, January 2, 2009. Under the program, booksellers are encouraged to tell a bookseller friend who has not yet nominated to the Indie Next List to nominate a favorite title. When the new nominator writes a blurb for a title and submits it online at BookWeb.org, both she and her colleague friend are entered into a random drawing to win one ABA gift card apiece, each worth $150.

Nominated titles can be either frontlist or backlist, in hardcover or paperback, and -- as with all Indie Next List nominations -- they should be titles that booksellers are enthusiastically looking forward to handselling to their customers in the upcoming weeks. Nominations can be fiction or nonfiction, including such categories as mystery, children's, cooking, or poetry.

At least one member of the team must be a first-time nominator to the Book Sense Picks or Indie Next List. Both members of the team must be associated with an ABA Regular Bookstore member in good standing. The Indie Next List nomination page [1] includes a link to the complete Official Rules.